


it's only when i lose myself (that i find myself)

by icedmachinery, icemachine



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen, Keeg has no mouth, Marijuana, Shotgunning, ish?, set sometime after s1 but before s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedmachinery/pseuds/icedmachinery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: He, somehow, doesn’t realize that the Negative Spirit has left his body until it taps him on the shoulder and points at the joint he's holding.(Or: Larry and Keeg get high.)
Relationships: Keeg Bovo & Larry Trainor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	it's only when i lose myself (that i find myself)

“Larry, do you have my joint or not?”

Jane’s voice sounds squeaky-high as it finds Larry -- loud, crashing — on the other side of the goddamn  _ room.  _ Where he’s set himself up at a small table with a magnifying glass, tweezers, rolling paper, and flower. He’s  _ immensely  _ proud of himself for learning how to roll  _ regular  _ joints, which he had done for Jane previously — before their predicament. This, however, is proving  to be a bit harder. He usually  _ runs  _ from his challenges, but it’s  _ Jane,  _ and in some fucked up weird way, he feels guilty for being the only “normal” one. 

Normal. That’s certainly a way to phrase it. He has never been normal, but in comparison to his friends now, it’s somewhat apt.

“Be patient. It was hard enough learning how to do this the first time.”

“Oh, come on. It was only hard for you because you’ve never done it before.”

He pauses, and some of the ground flower slips away.  _ Ugh.  _ “Why do you say that?”

“‘Cause you’ve had a stick up your ass for sixty years and it’s super fucking hard to imagine Captain Larry Trainor doing drugs.”

Okay. She’s right. He’s the most transparent square in the galaxy—

_ No.  _ That stops  _ now.  _ Everything stops now; the hatred of his love, the hatred of his existence, and, most importantly, his lack of experience.

“I can do drugs,” he says. He’s trying not to sound offended, but it’s incredibly obvious in his tone. Fuck.

“Really? Go ahead then. Take some. I’ve got more.”

He drops the tweezers. “Like… right now?”

“No, not right now.  _ After  _ you’re done.” She laughs; it’s a calming noise, a careful sound. He’s making her laugh, he’s aiding happiness; maybe he’s not as bad as he thought. “I bet one hit’s gonna knock you on your ass.”

“We’ll see.”

* * *

He rolls himself a (normal-sized --  _ normal _ ) joint with trembling fingers, locks himself in his bedroom, unravels the bandages covering his head and hands, and stares at it for  _ far  _ too long.

He’s really about to do this.

It takes him a few minutes to get Jane’s old lighter to work, but eventually he figures it out -- and he’s really going to do this, he lights the fire, he watches the paper burn, he brings it up to his lips (which have been touched by nothing but bandages for the past  _ six decades,  _ it’s  _ pathetic— _ ) and finally, finally, takes the hit.

At first, he feels nothing. So he takes another.

He, somehow, doesn’t realize that the Negative Spirit has left his body until it taps him on the shoulder and points at what he’s holding.

“Come on, really?  _ You  _ don’t want me to do this? I thought you’d be all for something that helps me get out of my mind for a little while.”

It simply shakes its head and folds its arms in front of its chest.

“Well,” Larry continues, “it’s supposed to, anyway. I don’t feel  _ anything. _ ” He takes another hit — longer, this time. Stops, frozen, and then reanimates. “Yeah, still nothing.” 

_ Oh. Oh, fuck. Oh,  _ **_fuck._ **

“Hey, have I ever told you that you’re  _ so  _ shiny? You’re like a… a….” (what is the  _ word? what is the word for that? _ ) “...star in the sky. No, that’s a horrible metaphor, sorry. I’m not good with words. I know there’s a word for how shiny you are, I just can’t think of it, but um, you’re sparkly.” Larry starts to giggle. “Like glitter! I know you’re made of negative energy… but you look like someone knocked over a thing of blue glitter. I used to hate glitter, but I don’t think I do anymore.”

The Spirit rolls its eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he snaps; it sounds ridiculous. He falls - it takes  _ forever, decades, centuries -  _ onto his bed, his body convulsing in a fit of laughter. “Don’t be like that.” He presses it to his lips again, and —

And he gets an absolutely horrific idea. 

“Hey,” Larry calls. “Come over here. I wanna try something.”

The Spirit hesitates. He’s never seen the Spirit  _ hesitate  _ before. It eventually floats over to him —  _ above  _ him, their faces so close, as if it can still scan his mind while resting outside of his body. Larry lets the smoke into his mouth, and breathes it out slowly into the Spirit’s vicinity. 

He expects it to recoil, to jolt backwards in anger, but instead it remains in its position. 

“You like that? I wonder if it’ll do anything to you. You know, because you’re not human.” Silence. Its crackling even halts. “Oh, do you want more?”

The Spirit nods carefully.

Larry  _ knows.  _ The smoke enters his lungs, and he leans closer -- there’s one inch, he guesses, of space between them now, and up close, the Spirit is even more unearthly, increasingly transcendent. He spent so long hating it, but now that his mind is clear… it’s just a being. It just wants to survive. This is Larry’s escape; the Spirit wants to escape, too. It wants to be close. It deserves to have some fun, because living inside Larry certainly isn’t. He blows the smoke into the Spirit, and the smoke floats around inside of its form.

Larry cannot help his grin.

“There you go,” he says, resting back onto his bed. “That’s it, though.”

The Spirit’s crackling resumes, and  _ continues  _ until it’s pace nearly shakes the room. It begins to flail around, its movement quick — light-fast, like—

And then it crashes on top of Larry, who pushes its weightless body aside. It rolls over onto its back and brings its hand up to its forehead. Larry knows it well — the gesture means:  _ fuck.  _ It apparently didn’t think the weed would cause an effect, but,  _ apparently,  _ it has.

For some reason, he finds that almost adorable. In this state, however —  _ everything  _ is adorable.

“You know what, pal?" he says. “I think this makes us friends now.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
